Comments Ben Jervey has made

Amen!  So well put!

Last year, I wrote something attacking the "save the planet" Earth Day rhetoric, but the absurd behavior we engage in to "celebrate" the environment needs just this sort of lambasting.  

"our sorry asses"

Couldn't agree more about the "save the planet" rhetoric.  It's a point I've been pushing hard in the NYC sustainability scene (we're selfish--make it about us!), and which I took a ton of flack for after this HuffPo rant about Earth Day saying essentially the same thing.  

http://www.sustaiNYC.com

Or use the 6-packs themselves to make the point!

Haven't been this pleased by an ad in ages, if ever:

High Life commercial directed by Errol Morris

http://www.sustaiNYC.com

75% of the time this movie is 100% effective

I'm totally behind David in that this film was pulled off quite nicely against all odds.  Who'd have thunk (besides those of us who've seen him deliver it) a science slideshow could be so riveting?

Hopefully, though, the slideshow alone will be enough to land some heineys in theatre seats, because Gore's backstory certainly won't.  

Here's my take: every good documentary has to have a narrative storyline attached--call it narrative nonfiction, maybe.  The science-laden global warning (errr....climate crisis) business has to be rooted in something that humans can relate to.  There are stories abound that could've done this.  They're just not Gore's.  I would've liked to see Gore use someone else's human story--perhaps the Innuits on (although not for long) Shishmaref, who've voted to relocate their entire town after generations living and knowing this place.  Can you imagine the scenes from that town hall when the residents make the vote?  Goosebumps, people!  At the risk of sounding callous--what the heck does Gore's family tragedy have to do with global warming?  So give us the real tragic global warming stories happening NOW.  Give us islanders packing for the mainland; give us tens of thousands of dead old folks in Europe--the paying audience wants to be moved. They need to feel peril, not stroll about a tobacco farm.  

And I could get into how the melodramatic shots of Gore posing and posteuring for crowds--practically ready for a NH syndicate commercial break--will mire the entire issue in politics.  Forget about the audience immediately in the seats--if the media decides this is a campaign move, then the true message of the movie will be totally wasted.  

(So can we stop talking about Gore running in 08, at least for like 4 months or so for this film to marinade in the public mind?)

Sorry--had to vent.  I've been talking this movie up for so long, organizing people in NYC to hit it up on opening weekend, but it does bum me out some that it's not the Totally Riveting Cinematic Event that it could've been.    On Gore's new flick, An Inconvenient Truth, improbably succeeds posted 3 years, 6 months ago 20 Responses